longing that they could last forever stitched against the know!
edge that tomorrow would be different, that in life few promises
were given.
They landed at noon in a meadow on the south edge of the
Sarandanon and ate fruit and cheese and goat’s milk provided
by Tiger Ty. Birds flitted in the trees, and small animals disap-
peared along branches and into burrows. Faun watched every-
thing as if she were seeing it for the first time. Stresa sniffed
the air, cat’s face wrinkling and twitching. Triss was well enough
to sit and stand alone now, though bandaged and splinted still,
his strong face scarred and bruised. He smiled often at Wren,
but his eyes remained sad and distant. Tiger Ty continued to
keep to himself. Wren knew he was mulling over what she was
about, wanting to ask but unwilling to do so. She found him a
curious man.
They continued their journey when their meal was finished,
sweeping down the valley toward the Rill Song. By midafter-
noon they were following the river’s channel north in a slow,
steady glide toward sunset.
It was approaching twilight when they reached the Carolan.
The rock wall rose in stark relief from the eastern shore of the
river to a vast, empty bluff that jutted outward from a protective
wall of towering hardwood and sheltering cliffs that rose higher
still. The bluff was rocky and bare, a rugged stretch of earth on
which only isolated patches of scrub grass grew.
It was atop the Carolan that Arborlon had been built. It was
from here more than a hundred years ago that the city had been
taken away.
Tiger Ty directed Spirit downward, and the giant Roc
dropped smoothly to the center of the bluff. The riders dis-
mounted, one after the other, Wren and Tiger Ty working side
by side in silence to unwrap Stresa and set him on the ground.
They stood clustered together for a moment, staring across the
empty plain at the forest dark east and the cliff drop west. The
country beyond was hazy with shadows, and the skies were
faintly tinged with purple and gold.
“Ssssttt! What is this place?” Stresa questioned uncomfort-
ably, staring about at the ravaged bluff.
“Home,” Wren answered distantly, lost somewhere deep
within herself.
“Home! Sssppph!” The Splinterscat was aghast.
“What are we doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Tiger Ty snapped, unable to contain himself any longer.
“What Allanon’s shade asked of me,” she said.
She reached up along Spirit’s harness and pulled free the
Ruhk Staff. The walnut haft was marred and dirtied and the
once gleaming curface dulled and worn. Fastened in the clawed
grips at one end, the Loden shone with dull, worn persistence
in the fading light.
She put the Staff butt downward against the earth and
gripped it before her with both hands. Her eyes fixed on the
Stone, and her thoughts traveled back to Morrowindl again, to
the long, endless days of mist and darkness, of demon Shad-
owen, of monsters and pitfalls, and of horror born of the Elven
magic. The island world rose up out of memory and gathered
her in, a frantic, doomed lover too dangerous for any to hold.
The faces of the dead paraded before her-Ellenroh Elessedil,
to whom the care of the Elves had been given and who in turn
had given it to her; Eowen, who had seen too much of what
was to be; Aurin Striate, who had been her friend; Gavilan
Elessedil, who could have been; Cort and Dal, her protectors;
and Garth, who had been, in the end, all of these. She greeted
them silently, reverently, promising each that a measure of what
had been given would be returned, that she would keep the trust
that had been passed on to her, and that she would respect what
it had cost to keep it safe.
She closed her eyes and sealed away the past, then opened
them again to stare into the faces of those gathered about her.
Her smile was, for an instant, her grandmother’s. “Triss, Stresa,
Tiger Ty, and you, little Faun-you are my best friends
now, and if you can, I would like you to stay with me, to be